Between You and Me
by templefugate
Summary: Dipper learns more than he needed to know about Bill and his grunkle Ford's past relationship.


His throat had grown suddenly dry and his lips had suddenly sealed. Were it not for the throbbing of his heart against his rib cage and the sweat rolling down his neck then perhaps Stanford would have thought that it was some spell, a demon's trickery, that was keeping him silent.

"Dipper," he said, though how he managed to speak was unbeknownst to him. "Ever since I got back to this dimension, I've dreaded the fact that I would have to tell someone about this." He turned his eyes to the computer screen glowing behind him, to the infinite rows of glowing green numbers. With those words out, talking was easier, and Stanford easily swallowed the lump that had once been tight in his throat. "But it's too dangerous to keep you ignorant, and I always knew that somehow, in some way, someone would have to learn about what I did."

He raised an eyebrow. It wasn't an unusual look on the boy, but his eyes no longer held the eager spark of curiosity from before. "What happened?"

"Bill."

For a moment, the two were both silent, and the whole room would have been quiet if not for the steady beeping of machinery and turning of clock gears. Stanford didn't so much as breathe, as if the very movement could somehow draw the demon into this plane of reality.

Stanford sighed. "You weren't the only one who got tricked by him the way that I did, but you were lucky enough to not get as close to him as I did."

Dipper stiffened momentarily, his eyes widening yet not going glossy, as if he couldn't see what was in front of him.

"Let me retract that last statement," Stanford added quickly. "No matter how long Bill stays around, he always hurts people. That's the reason that I had to completely rewire my brain and get a metal plate put inside of my skull, and as tedious and painful as both were they were a thousand times better then having Bill inside of my head." He paused for a moment. "I'm sure you know what being under his control is like."

Dipper looked over to the screen. "Am I really going to have to use that thing on my head?"

"I'm afraid so, at least if you want to make sure that you're safe from Bill." He forced a lopsided smile. "Thankfully the metal plate is optional."

Dipper nodded. "Is this thing really going to help me?"

For a boy who had fought monsters and tricked a demon out of his deal, the boy seemed unusually nervous. Stanford looked at him for a moment longer, watching the way that his face wrinkled and his hands leaned closer against his body.

"There's nothing else that we can do that I know can protect you, at least unless you don't leave the shack. Bill couldn't get past that force field if he had the powers of an entire galaxy."

The boy sighed. "If this screws up my brain, it's your fault."

He hadn't objected after that, just silently let his great uncle attach him to the machine. He didn't jerk away whenever Stanford attached a new wire or wiggle around as though his bones were gone.

"Gruncle Ford," he said suddenly, breaking the silence, just as his progress had gone to two-percent.

"Is something wrong?"

"What happened when you worked with Bill? You explained it a little before, but not everything."

"I'd rather not describe it if I were honest, but I suppose there's no point in trying to deny it." He sighed. "At first it was exhilerating, nothing short of fantastic. I had all the knowledge in the world at my fingerprints, and a powerful demon to come with it. What he offered me seemed too good to refuse, and the terms and conditions hadn't seemed so bad. It was just letting Bill inside of m-"

"What?"

It took Stanford a moment to realize that the boy hadn't opened his mouth, the word flashing across the screen for a moment before vanishing just as quickly as it appeared. Dipper sunk deeper in his chair.

"Is something wrong, Dipper?" Stanford repeated, his voice slightly louder than before.

"You, you," he said, speaking verbally this time, "you let Bill inside of you?" Dipper spoke a little lower near the end, as if he were afraid that someone else might hear them.

"Well, yes, Bill was adamant that he get inside of me, and at the time I could hardly see it as a bad idea."

It wasn't the glow of the screen that was making his great nephew's face green, the shade not nearly as lime colored.

"Dipper?"

"Grunkle Ford, you, uh-" he said before going silent.

"You and Bill actually did it?" the machine shrieked, matching his nephew's voice to the slightest detail.

"Did what?" He raised an eyebrow before just as quickly dropping it. Mabel and her friends had mentioned a similar phrase before but they had all gone quiet when he had walked by, their faces turning crimson. "Dipper, what I said earlier, I didn't mean it like that!"

The two were silent for a moment, not even the machine making a comment as it slowly encrypted the boy's brain.

"Well, I'm glad that this is going to make sure that Bill never gets in my head again, because I don't ever want him learning about this." Dipper looked down to his hands. "Do you think Old Man McGucket still has any of those ray guns that erase your memory? Or can this machine help me?"

The boy laughed, and Stanford joined in. His eyes moved from the boy and the machine to the walls. He bit his lip as a wave of heat ran through his body.

There was no point in remembering things from before, memories of an action he never should have taken. Still, he couldn't help but be glad that it wasn't his head hooked up to the machine; some things, unlike the demon himself, belonged solely between Stanford's skull.


End file.
